Israeli Leaders Made Some Astonishing Comments Over The Weekend

Israel stepped up its strikes on Gaza this weekend in response to
a week's worth of missiles launched from Gaza militants, but it
wasn't just the strikes that stepped up.

Several prominent Israeli leaders made astounding comments in the
last couple days that raised more than a few eyebrows.

Last night Haaretz
reported on their Live Blog of the conflict
that Interior Minister Eli Yishai said, "The goal of
the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle
Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty
years."

“Brothers! Beloved soldiers and commanders - preserve
your lives! Don’t give a hoot about
Goldstone! There are no innocents in
Gaza, don’t let any diplomats who want to look
good in the world endanger your lives[;] at any tiniest concern
for your lives - Mow them!”

His reference to Goldstone was about the
U.N.-commissioned report which analyzed the 2008/9 conflict
between Gaza and Israel. The report concluded that Israel and
Hamas both committed several war crimes and humanitarian
offenses.

One can understand taking a hardline against "terrorists,"
but Gilad Sharon's comments this weekend caught everyone by
surprise. Sharon pretty much advocated turning Gaza
into a parking lot in an OpEd
he wrote for the right-leaning Jerusalem Post.

From Sharon's post:

There is no justification for the State of Gaza being able
to shoot at our towns with impunity. We need to flatten
entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The
Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t
surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.

The startling nature of Sharon's comments is twofold. First, he
is the son of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The elder
Sharon famously resigned from his previous post as Defense
Minister for presiding over the Sabra and Shatila
massacre during the war in Lebanon.

The Israeli government banned him for life from ever
resuming the post, and he subsequently took over as Prime
Minister.

The second reason is that Israel is totally capable of doing as
much. Hamas threats out of Gaza are no less extreme, but
they're hurling cheap homemade rockets, a stark contrast to
Israel's cutting edge military complex.

Granted, it must be said that Hamas
leaders make plenty
of insane statements, but they are what Israelis and
Americans call terrorists — so it's probably better not to mimic
their forms of speech.

Barack Obama again reaffirmed his support of Israel, to
defend itself against unprovoked attacks, but also advised
restraint. Israel stepped up the campaign though,
striking several targets, even hitting a Hamas newsroom in the
same building that housed British news outlets.

Muhammed Morsi recently made some comments indicating that
a ceasefire may be close, but also said there are "no
guarantees."